GOT A PROBLEM ABOUT VOTING?

To learn more about the VisionCircles methodology and the OSCAR method click here or visit our Bookstore.

Use the OSCAR method to clear the fog.

The question about whom to vote for is camouflaging the more important questions of what I am voting for in this election and the follow-up question of why I believe that the what question is so important. We have always taken for granted that the democrat, republican and other parties, except the communist party, and their candidates shared the common faith in the beliefs and principles of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution inspired by a theistic-spiritual-scientific attitude aimed at forming a more perfect union. Just as Jason in the Greek mythological story escaped being destroyed by the monsters of Scylla and Charybdis guarding the entrance to the Black Sea in his quest for the golden fleece, the founders of our country created the political documents that protect us from being crushed by the monsters of theocracy and dictatorship.

The issues in play today are those pertaining to the first amendment, the heart and spirit of the country that protects us from the two monsters. At the time of the Kennedy-Nixon debates about seventy-five percent of the country trusted our elected representatives and our government and educational institutions to act according to our common rational faith. In the run-up to the 2024 election that trust has plummeted to percentages in the low thirties. In the past our rational faith in the ideals and principles of our founding documents generated hope and trustthat we would succeed in achieving our life plans to satisfy our financial, security and career needs. Young people are not feeling that trust and hope.

All the unhappiness attached to discrimination between groups of people and to the imbalance of the distribution of material goods are in large measure rooted in systems of government that deny the self-evident truth that humans ARE equal and free to govern themselves. We cannot think about what we are and who we are without speaking freely with other human beings that are equally free. The Constitution is inspired by this self-evident truth. Yet, we all have a tale to tell about the inhuman behavior of one group of humans toward another groupof humans throughout the ages.

Governments such as the Soviet Union formed by an atheistic-materialistic attitude and by the denial of self-evident truths aim to wipe out inhuman behavior by the dictatorship of the people’s government. The atheistic-materialistic-social sciences attitude that is infiltrating our educational institutions and threatening our Constitution promises one harmonious pure world, provided we surrender the self-evident truths in The Declaration of Independence and the right to free speech and free thought in The Constitution.

In every election Americans come together for two reasons. They commit themselves to our common faithin our enduring values that all humans are created free and equal by God. The second reason is to vote for the best people with the best plan who give their word to defend The Constitution and to abide by its principles to achieve the common good of the whole country and the good of different interest groups by creating conditions to facilitate the solutions to our social and economic problems.

A month before this election seventy-five percent of voters believe that the country is on the wrong track going in the wrong direction. The main problem confronting voters is to get back on the track of our founding documents that is going in the right direction.

My neighbor complained that the oak floors in his living room and dining room creaked when people walked on them. He decided to tear out the floors and replace them. The contractor discovered that some of the beams were rotten.  A functional problem turned into a structural problem. Citizens are discovering that under our functional problems about our economy, our borders, our schools and our justice institutions, we have the beginnings of structural problems especially with the first amendment beam.

We can have a biologically functional problem caused by external conditions, but if we have a structural problem, we will also have a functional problem that will slow us down.  Our country has a structural problem. The beams of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are being rotted out by diversity-inclusion-equity programs and other programs rooted in the atheistic-materialistic-social sciences attitude.

Some leaders and members of the contemporary progressive democrat party are calling for a fundamental transformation of our common faith in American culture. Traditional democrats of which I am one are silent. I believe that American culture means that citizens use their best human thinking to respond to the radical questions about human nature, human society and God and to our questions about how to solve our functional practical problems within the American world of free speech, self-governance and thoughtful communal sovereignty protected by The Constitution.

No person is radicalized. We are self-reflecting speaking beings raising radical questions to uncover radical answers about our universe and ourselves, so that we can function mentally at our best to lovegenuinely whom and what we hold in highest regard. To be radicalized means that we are not thinking by ourselves and with other citizens about our radical questions.

The creators of our founding documents made a fundamental decision to form a representative government of sovereign citizens inspired by the traditional theistic-spiritual-scientific attitude. Succeeding individuals, either born in the country or seeking citizenship, pledge their word to our living rational creed in the beliefs and principles of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution that are our compass and our source of energy on our journey to a good life.

The divisions that contemporary American citizens are experiencing in the personal, social, political, moral, religious, and moral dimensions of their lives are rooted in two opposing attitudes toward themselves, nature, society, and God. Our divisions are not about different ways to answer questions about our financial, health, security, and career needs. The either/or existential crisis is about committing or not committing ourselves to our common rational faith that triggers wisdom and courage to solve our practical problems.

The country has two opposing, not competing, systems of the free press formed by opposing fundamental attitudes. The country has two opposing educational systems formed by opposing fundamental attitudes. The country has two opposing legal systems formed by opposing fundamental attitudes. The country’s common faith is internally and externally under siege by the foreign faith that labels our common faith bad faith. The supposed good faith camouflaged as American progressivism is revisionist Marxism inspired by the ancient atheistic-materialistic attitude toward the human being, society and God.

Just about anyone over the age of forty speaks about these divisions with the language of opposites in their expressions such as, the country is upside-down, and the country is inside-out. Our definition of the problems on the surface about inflation, violence, illegal immigration, abortion, a two-tier justice system, genderism, racism, and the divided educational system are grounded in the roots of the two fundamental opposing attitudes toward nature, humans and God.

The problem of voting is whether I want to think about my thinking about root causes. If I do, for a start I can think about the Chinese Communist Party rooted in the atheistic-materialistic-social science attitude of revisionist Marxism that opposes our founding living documents rooted in the theistic-spiritual-scientific attitude that defines The United States. When politicians say that the Chinese Communist Party does not share our values, the opposition of the two fundamental attitudes toward human beings, society, natural science and God ought to hit all of us right between the eyes.

I believe that a reasonable and solid hypothesis to solve our structural and functional problems states that if we are attentive to our living founding documents rooted in the theistic-spiritual-scientific attitude,our country that is being divided by revisionist Marxism parading under the flag of social progressivism and rooted in the atheistic-materialistic-social science attitude can get back on track.

My hypothesis is based on my reflective self-speech about my observations of the widening divisions in all our institutions that I judge to be provoked by a cabal of progressive democrat self-anointed leaders calling for a fundamental change of the American culture. These divisions are facilitated, either out of ignorance or lack of courage, by non-responsive democrats, independents, republicans, the free press and any other like-minded groups of citizens thinking about how to govern our country effectively,

In this first phase of the OSCAR method of creative problem solving, I am observing my own self-talk about my observations, and I am listening and thinking about the observations of fellow citizens. When the surveys say that we are on the wrong track and that we are going in the wrong direction, the obvious questions are, “How did we get here?”,“What is the right track?”, “What is the right direction?”, ”How to get on the right track?”. One obvious area to search for an answer to our questions is our educational institutions.

Not until the pandemic and the zoom home classrooms did parents find out what was going on in those pre-pandemic classrooms.  We need to search thoroughly to determine if the attitude producing the kind of academic content and teaching going on in our educational institutions is in tune with the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. Aristotle warns us thatif the spirit of our educational institutions is not in tune with our constitution, our constitution will die.

After completing the first phase of speaking with ourselves and fellow citizens about our observations, the ensuing phases in the OSCAR method are:

2. Sorting out our positive and negative thinking and emotions; sorting out the order of our values according to which we value what and who are so important to us; sorting our reasonable and unreasonable assumptions and expectations;

3. Creatively thinking to produce practical ideas that will strengthen our common faith in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution and to produce useful ideas that will resolve our economic, social, security, health and educational problems;

4. Prudently judging what candidate and what plan resonate more with the beliefs, principles and ideal values of our common faith before I act, that is, vote;

5. Reviewing the probable consequences and revising, if necessary, my vote for the people and the plan that I expect will solve the fundamental problem of getting our institutions on the Constitutional track and will solve the problems of inflation, illegal immigration, and others.

All methods about material things are presented in sequential order, but humans do not always think in a step-by-step way to solve human problems. We bounce back and forth spontaneously between several ways of thinking. The OSCAR method incorporates the essential ways of thinking to do creative problem solving.  The most important activity in the first step is to speak with ourselves about what we are observing and to speak with each other about what we are saying to ourselves about our observations.

Einstein said that if you give me one hour to solve a problem, it will take me fifty-five minutes to define the problem and five minutes to solve it. In the first, second and third phases of observing, sorting out and creatively connecting, we are defining the problem by seeing the gaps and contradictions between actualizing the ideals of our common faith in our institutions and by speaking with ourselves and other citizens about the country moving in the wrong direction.

I am always intrigued by political candidates that say things like: “I will get the job done”, “I will protect American values” and “I have programs that will solve your kitchen table problems”. As the politician is speaking, I am speaking to myself about what he/she or the desired pronoun is saying. I want to make sense to myself about what the candidate believes about the job and what he or she means about protecting American values. For example, I am asking myself questions about the kitchen table problems.

I grew up in an apartment building in the Bronx. We didn’t have a kitchen table.  The kitchen was too small. Are politicians assuming that all kitchen table problems are the same? Am I expecting this political party or that political party to solve my kitchen table problems? Is my understanding of “getting the job done” the same as politicians’ understanding of “getting the job done”?

I’ve got a problem when I feel and see the gap between the way my life, my family, my neighborhood, my country, and my representative government could be acting and the way I, my family, my neighborhood, my country and my representative government are acting.

I’ve also got a problem when I feel and see opposing ideals, powers and actions knocking me off track, because they are either clashing in me, within my family, within our country and within our institutions or pulling us apart.

I have both problems, because I tacitly know and intuitively feel in myself the inherent worth ofpersonswho strive to become the actualization of their ideal selves. Just focus on the response of citizens pulling together even at the risk of their own lives to help fellow citizens suffering human and physical losses from the hurricane, Helene.  The evidence  confirms that we are potentially and actually thinking and loving beings that want to continue to realize our oneness and harmony with ourselves, with each other, with our surroundings and with the Source of it all. Progressivism starts with the opposite belief that we are separated from each other, oppressed by each other and defined by our appearances and our socio-economic place in the economic engine that one day will produce highly functioning human beings.

When I am speaking about organizing American citizens, I am speaking about self-moving persons organizing themselves within a politically living body of relationships according to a living contract that its creators named The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America. The creators pledged their word and their possessions to the new covenant, not to a party of people charged to administer andto care for our institutions. Succeeding generations keep the living covenant in existence, if each person pledges his or her word to the beliefs and principles written in the founding documents. Given the accuracy of our thoughtful observations, a significant percentage of citizens are pledging their word to a party instead of to The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.

A symphonic orchestra is a better analogy to see both problems of the gap between our ideal values and the questionable practices of our institutions and of the clashing of opposing attitudes present in our institutions as one problem. The two aspects of our institutions when they are functioning well are: behaving in ways that are congruent with the principles of The Constitution and faithfully moving toward forming a perfect union. The achievement of these two goals can be seen as one practical problem. We want to solve the problem of the gap between the possibility of what we could do and the actuality of what we are doing; and, simultaneously, we want to eliminate the noise made by citizens that are not in harmony with each other and with our common faith.

A symphonic orchestra functions beautifully because the different instruments and musicians are attuned to the true C note; all the different musicians areattuned to their musical instruments and to other musicians; the different instruments are attuned to the musicians and to other instruments; all the musicians are playing the same composition; and, the conductor, attuned to the composition and its movement, is leading by drawing the best performance from the musicians and from himself/herself toward harmony and unity with each other that they and the audience all see and love.

Just as the conductor and the musicians are performing to actualize the musical composition, I am, in the act of voting, performing to actualize The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.I want each citizen toenjoy the goods and rights common to each citizen. I want all citizens as a country to continue to pursue our own good in the activities of forming a more perfect union in accordance with our common faith. There is always room for everyone to participate and for novel interpretations.

The reasons for making this judgment are based on my reflective observations and the thoughtful observations of fellow citizens.  The fact that North Carolina University found it necessary to institute a school based on the creation of a culture of free thought and free speech is a clear warning sign that the living constitution is threatened. 

Everyone tacitly feels and knows that the first amendment, the heart of the country, is under attack in just about allour institutions by elected and non-elected officials of our representative government.

It seems to me that at this critical juncture in our history the answers to my what and why questions in this election need to be answered before I answer the question, “Who is the better candidate with the best plan to solve the long-term structural problem about the preservation and growth of our institutions and the immediate functional problems about our economic, social and international dilemmas?”.

The American spirit and the country will endure, if attentive Americans create novel solutions that are in tune with The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.

To learn more about the VisionCircles methodology and the OSCAR method click here or visit our Bookstore.